Over the years European Union has become a considerable world power which gives lots of benefits to its member countries and their citizens. Together with virtually non-existent country borders, one of the greatest pros of being in EU is the monetary support. That is very important to the economically weaker countries. But lots of people think that the money is coming for free and it will last forever. It is certainly not so. Nothing is free in this world and nothing lasts forever, sadly.
“Money makes the world go round”. I’m sure every single one of you has heard this phrase so much times it makes you sick. That is the reason why some people have better living conditions than others. Also, that’s the reason where the European Union comes in to the rescue. Weaker countries, torn up by the Soviet Union, like Lithuania, have been given money to be able to stand in the international market as an equal. Compensations for farmers, building renovations, help for financially burdened families, and tons of other help – it’s all the merit of the European Union. But why those countries have been given billions of euros? It is simple. It is an investment, and as every investment, it is made to acquire benefits in time. In this case, the purpose is to make countries capable to trade with stronger members of the Union and to contribute to the better future of the Europe. That answers the question why we are getting this money and what is expected of us.
But another question arrives: where all this money comes and how long is it going to last? Every country, accepted into the European Union, has been given the money with one condition – when they will be able to fully function without help, they will have to contribute to the ‘pot’. What it means is that a country has to a percentage of its budget to European Union, which will use the money according to its needs. Long-time members, like Germany, have been doing this for a long time. But the problem is that sometimes countries can’t contribute because they face big financial crises. Let’s take Greece for an example. Greece always has been a quite capable country that has ancient roots and beautiful landscapes. But because of the great financial crisis that has hit the world a few years ago. Greece was hit so hard because one of its main incomes is tourism. When you don’t have much money, you can’t go on long trips, right. Because of such occurrences, the European Union had to borrow money to fill the financial holes that had been created. So, the money is slowly, slowly drying out. But we were taught a valuable lesson – never take everything for granted.
As we can see, while the financial help to the struggling countries is a certainly good thing, it creates new problems of its own. But these problems are the one main problem of the Economics – the limitation of resources. It’s just that they have become more visible and urgent. No matter how many times we are going to try to solve it, it will pop up again – like a cursed wheel. But that is the reason why unions like this have been created in the flow of history. However, not many became able to live with reality, and that is the reason they have crumbled to pieces. If we do not want this to happen to us, we shouldn’t ignore our problems, because no one is going to solve them for us.
Economics and taxes are related but also different. Economics is describing factors, elements, relations. Taxes is an instrument f.i. influencing these. Your point on history is a very valuable one I think. One which applies to daily reality for every individual and eventually the challenge to look at reality and make one’s own choice. For any allignment to succeed we also have to take negative aspects which influenced Greece into account and the market realities of globalism.